This is the event report from the „Ascension of Caine“ as it was played in Bochum, Germany on July 9th, 2017. This report was written and compiled by the organizer of the tournament, the Prince of Bochum .. many thanks to Hardy for writing this stuff. (Also published earlier on vekn.de)

One after another, they trickled into the city…. smuggling easily hidden weapons into town… and some of their clan’s most prized artifacts… all preparing for the arrival of their leader Ankla Hotep. The Ravnos planned to end what they considered just an illusion held by the Camarilla: Berlin was to be free.

But they did not go unnoticed: The Nosferatu caught on to what was happening, and rallied the Ventrue and Toreador to the cause. For a brief, but bloody time, Berlin was the center of attention for various Justicars, Princes, and even Inner Circle members, trying to thwart the incursion.

As so often with these nightly wars, after the first successes against the common enemy, there was a large amount of inter-Camarilla backstabbing: Trying to go unnoticed in the chaos, not only did the Nosferatu secretly settle some old grudges with the mighty Ventrue, but also the Toreador managed to have Wilhelm Waldburg, the Prince of Berlin, “accidentally” be killed by one of the Archons present in the city.

In the end, after a desperate struggle, the invading forces managed to scatter the defenses of the Camarilla, beginning with the death of Cock Robin, Justicar of the Nosferatu: The Ravnos might also have lost their leader, Ankla Hotep… but they had broken a hold the Camarilla had had over the German capital for long decades. The Ravnos had ousted the Camarilla from the city of Berlin!

… or had they?

Underground, in a well-hidden bunker, an obese, ugly creature sat, its pale mottled hands typing data into a state-of-the-art laptop. A large spreadsheet showed on the screen. One last number, one return key…. then the result was displayed on the screen. The creature bared a set of crooked, very sharp teeth… and smiled an ugly smile.

The Ravnos brought a large and colorful supply of equipment to their attack on Berlin – some real, some only there in the minds of their opponents: Wooden Stakes, Garrottes, Pier 13, Deer Rifle, Blade of Enoch, Karavalanisha Vrana, Treasured Samadji.

The Ventrue managed to control, and use to good effect (to threaten with, or to actually do damage), the Island of Yiaros in all three rounds.

Most unusual or unexpected actions

Anneke called a Judgment: Camarilla Segregation, due to which a by then bloodless Ankla Hotep was burned.

Anneke was selected as target for a Toreador Justicar vote (to allow the player to cycle cards and use a Voter Captivation) – which then just confirmed the title she already had.

Cock Robin, who in his efforts to block the Ravnos was torporized with a Mayaparisatya, was diablerized by Salbatore Bokkengro.

Wilhelm Waldburg attempted to aggressively bleed the Toreador, who used an Archon Investigation to burn him.

Back in early 2004 as part of the Day of Judgment campaign, White Wolf announced a special VTES event called the Prophecies League, which was designated as a (local) VTES league with varying special rules for each match day. This is the third part of the reproduction of the original rules/web page.

If you want to play this format in the near future in your local playgroup, I advise you not to read the full article. You’ll just spoil the fun and surprise of encountering different VTES game environments.

Back in early 2004 as part of the Day of Judgment campaign, White Wolf announced a special VTES event called the Prophecies League, which was designated as a (local) VTES league with varying special rules for each match day. This is the second part of the reproduction of the original rules/web page.

If you want to play this format in the near future in your local playgroup, I advise you not to read the full article. You’ll just spoil the fun and surprise of encountering different VTES game environments.

Back in early 2004 as part of the Day of Judgment campaign, White Wolf announced a special VTES event called the Prophecies League, which was designated as a (local) VTES league with varying special rules for each match day. Since the rules don’t seem to be available anymore outside of the Usenet Newsgroup rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad and the Wayback-Machine and now VEKN.net, I am duplicating this information here as well. There will be three posts, the first with the general rules, the second with the twelve special rules and one with a picture/screenshot of the special rules (as they were presented on the original website (Time of Judgement).

Prophecies V:TES League

Prince Fleurdumal declared Miami Art Museum Elysium for the duration of her lavish party. With much of kindred society aflutter with talk of Gehenna, she couldn’t resist the chance to host a, tongue-in-cheek, “End of the World” party. Her invited guests, of course, were like-minded cynics and it was unlikely that any of attendees were prepared to deal with the events the evening would bring.

Fleurdumal outdid herself with an ostentatious display of wealth and decadence as was appropriate for kindred society’s final soiree. One by one, her guests broke free of their gossip and back-handed compliments to congratulate her on the party’s success. Adelaide Davis, neared the front of the receiving line but stood motionless upon reaching Fleurdumal. Adelaide stared blankly and then bellowed, “Hearken to the prophet’s words.” However, the sounds were that of two voices–one male and one female. “Hearken to the words of the oracle,” yelled the male voice.

After the release of the 2015 Storyline reward cards, I was curious what actually changed between the original cards from the storyline (in 2014) compared to the ones just released (in 2015). One of the German players did this in textual form in the German VTES forum, but here’s the graphical comparison as well. Apart from the functional changes (as listed below), there were some editorial changes to make some effects more clear, but which I didn’t list.

Group ANY

Group 5

+1 strength

Group ANY

Group 5

Group ANY

Group 5

Group ANY

can steal a title from a Camarilla vampire as +stealth action.

during a referendum he can burn one blood to get two votes.

Group 3

+2 votes

can cancel a reaction card played by a younger vampire by burning two blood.

Today (March 1st, 2015) the VEKN released more information on VEKN.net about the upcoming VTES Storyline named The Red Sign. But read for yourself:

The Red Sign is a constructed V:TES Storyline event designed for worldwide play during spring and summer 2015.

Except as noted in these instructions, each Storyline game will follow the VEKN Constructed Tournament rules for card play and deck construction. Each Storyline game will be timed to a maximum duration of 2 hours.

At least 75% (e.g. 9 out of 12) of the vampires in each player’s crypt must belong to the same clan. In this context, ‘clan’ includes all bloodlines, Panders and Imbued, but not Caitiff.

In addition to the standard list of VEKN banned cards and errata, the following changes apply:

Today the VEKN has released a set of VTES library and crypt cards as rewards for the Storyline events of the past years. But read for yourselves, the links to the card PDFs are at the bottom of the article:

Official release: February 21, 2015Legal for Tournament Play: March 23, 2015

Among the core concepts of Storyline events is having the players contribute to the narrative of the World of Darkness as well as to the design direction of future cards in V:TES. Over the past several years, we’ve had unfinished business with respect to realizing these narratives in game form. The following cards represent the participation and contributions that you, the players, have made in the Storyline events, as well as the subsequent playtesting and feedback. We are grateful to all of you, and we look forward to providing more opportunities for you to help steer the direction of V:TES!

As mentioned previously, we’re still waiting for one piece of artwork to be delivered. As soon as the piece arrives, we’ll update the Storyline Rewards .pdf file to include the card.